Podcast Episode
The Directors: Two Gulf Coast cancer center directors on why NCI designation matters—and why they want it
About this episode
What should a cancer center look like in an era of AI, genomics, complex patient populations, rising costs, and declining public trust in science?Two directors—both pursuing NCI designations, and serving contiguous Gulf Coast catchment areas—offer profound thoughts on the matter of building a modern cancer center. Raghu Kalluri, senior vice president, executive director, and chief scientific officer of the University of Texas Medical Branch Cancer Center, and Lucio Miele, director of Louisiana State University-LCMC Health Cancer Center, are thinking about what a cancer center should look like over the next 50-100 years. “There's a tremendous catchment out there of people who are interested in doing something new, doing something different. And I'm one of them. For me, this is a great opportunity that leadership presented from the UTMB to the University of Texas system, and it was a great opportunity to go do something new,” said Kalluri, who joined UTMB from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he served as professor and chair of Cancer Biology and director of the Metastasis Research Center.Rather than treating the current revolution in science and medicine as a threat, Kalluri and Miele see it as an opportunity to do more than just replicate existing models.“I'm finding the exact same thing. Finding people who are interested in doing something new in an environment where they have room to grow is possible and not particularly difficult in this day and age, given sufficient resources. So, yes, this is a good time to start the cancer center, paradoxically—despite all the challenges,” said Miele, who is also a senior associate dean for research at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, chair of the Department of Genetics, and Cancer Crusaders Professor of Genetics.Kalluri and Miele appeared together on The Directors, a monthly series which focuses on the problems that keep directors of cancer centers up at night.Read more and access the full episode transcript: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20260925_1/